


In the Twilight of Memory

by simplifyingforces (vigorousplasmids)



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Gen, basically what i wanted to see before the trip to malachor, captain and commander bonding, pre-twilight of the apprentice, this isn't really shippy but you can read it that way if you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 11:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6422668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigorousplasmids/pseuds/simplifyingforces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahsoka's heading to Malachor, but Rex can't let her go without finding closure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Twilight of Memory

It’s late, and Rex is so very tired. He’s tired a lot these days, and it’s only going to go downhill from here. Sore muscles and creaking joints aside, they’ll all live to fight another day, and he can’t be too upset about that.

This may be the last time he thinks that, after all.

He gingerly makes his way around the base, looking for the spot he knows he’ll find the Commander. _Ahsoka_ , he tells himself, and it’s another reminder he’ll probably forget the next time he thinks about her.

When he finds her, it’s like a memory come to life. She’s sitting in a corner of the empty makeshift mess hall with a cup of caff in her hands, knees pulled up tightly to her chest with her head pillowed on them.

It always seems to slightly throw him off when he catches her here, for as many times as he’s done it. He’s seen her meditate a thousand times, often in the oddest places, but this has never been about clearing her mind. He knows her; has known her since she was just a youngling. It’s preparation, a pre-battle ritual, and it always involves a silent, lonely cup of caff in a place meant for camaraderie and friendship.

“Heard you had quite a time with the local wildlife,” she says as she raises her head slightly and offers him a smile. It’s open and genuine, and his heart breaks a little because it feels so _old_. He can’t imagine what she sees when she looks at him.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” he replies. “Mind if I join you?”

She unfolds an arm in welcome, and he sits across from her. Closer up, she looks tense around the eyes. There’s a holoprojector on the table that looks like it’s one of the Spectres’, judging by the heavy amount wear-and-tear on the thing. He’s putting his money on Jarrus.

“Please don’t tell me that you’ve gotten hooked on holodramas in the time you’ve been underground.” And it’s hard, hard as hell, to think about the arguments they used to have on the _Resolute_ about the latest holo releases. There was that one time, on a planet he can’t even remember anymore, where they’d spent a full day of leave trying to find the latest comedy for the boys. He was pretty sure they both had ended up on some sort of watch list for that adventure, but it had been worth it. The Commander had always gone all-out for his brothers, to help them find a little more happiness in the bad draw they had all gotten in this galaxy.

“Rexster, you wouldn’t know a good holodrama if it bit you in the shebs,” she says, and he laughs. He’d forgotten just how much Mando’a she’d learned during the Clone Wars.

“True enough. I’ve always been a holoadventure man, myself.” She smiles back indulgently and, in their comfortable banter, he’s not sure how to broach the topic that’s been on the tip of his tongue since he found himself working beside her again.

With the swift push of a button, she does it for him. The projector turns on, and staring back at him is the face of his General.

“I’d say this particular disk straddles the line between both of our preferred holo genres,” she says. It’s some sort of training video, nothing of much value to a clone like him, but you can see all of the power and innovation that the General had possessed, even filtered through the recording. It had saved both of them more times than he can count.

“I never thought,” she begins as he watches, and he can see her throat working to get the words out from the corner of his eye. “Not until the Siege of Lothal, that there was any possibility, any at all…” Her face is covered mostly by the holo of the General, but he can see her hand shaking slightly on the table, and he grabs it.

“Is he alive?” His throat is tight, and it makes the question come out hoarsely. Her hand turns under his to grasp back, and it’s cold like the rest of her, but it conveys such strength and understanding. He holds on tightly like it’s a lifeline, because it is. She has been, for decades now.

“Yes,” she breathes, and with that admission, he wants to shrink back and away from his massive failure. All those years, the messages she’d sent him, asking for his help, and -- he doesn’t blame Wolffe, he couldn’t. But he’s a capable man. He was bred to be. His Jedi had needed him and he hadn’t been there.

“Can we--is he on Malachor?” She jerks back slightly in response, but he doesn’t let go. He can’t, not yet.

“He will be,” she says with such subdued finality that it worries him. He watches her look at the General, still going through the motions of some Jedi combat technique, so young and confident. After a moment, she stretches her other hand out toward the tiny figure, like she can reach in and save him, keep him in a time and place that’s long gone. Maybe she wants to go back there herself.

“We were the best, weren’t we?” she whispers, the blue light of the holo reflecting on her skin, and he squeezes her hand again.

“Never saw a better pair than the two of you,” he responds, and that’s never been a lie. “Made it damn hard to keep up, as you well know.” She blinks swiftly a few times, and then reaches down and powers off the projector. The room feels empty and motionless.

Half-formed theories and questions are swirling in his head, dredging up old algorithms and battle plans. If they can save him, he wants so desperately to do it. A man like General Skywalker could turn the tide, bring back the Republic. A man like him could be there for her, because Rex knows he’s only got so many years left in him and she needs _someone_.

Like all Jedi (no matter what she says these days), she’s giving him that look, like she knows all the things he’s considering. She doesn’t need to be a Jedi for that, with all that they’ve been through. He has no problem waiting for the opinion she’s never had a problem giving.

“The dark side of the Force is powerful and tempting,” she says, finally. “I know that as well as any Jedi. It’s very difficult to return, from something--from something like that.” She hesitates as she looks at him, and he can see that there’s some knowledge there that she’s still working through. He can tell that she’s afraid.

“You have to embrace your anger, your hate, and when you do...it broadcasts. And some people broadcast so strongly and so uniquely in the Force that you know.” She pauses and breathes in, slowly. “You _know_ who it is. Even if you don’t want to believe it.”

He should say something, anything, but he can’t think of what to say. General Skywalker -- the man who stopped at nothing to save millions of innocents, who called his brothers by name, who loved the Senator so fiercely -- had Fallen. There were no words of comfort for that, not for his padawan, whose heart is breaking in front of him.

“Then he’s working for the Empire,” he finally gets out, to put them back on some sort of firm footing. They need a plan, and he’s always been good at those, even when everything is crashing around him. “An Inquisitor?”

She shakes her head. “We thought they were long gone, before Maul. We were all fooled by Palpatine.” He’s shaking his own head now in disbelief, because he knows where she’s going; he knows it and he can’t believe it.

“There’s always two, Rex. A master and an apprentice.”

He stands up before he can even register he’s doing it, ripping his hand out of hers.

“You can’t go to Malachor!” he shouts and it’s pathetic how petulant he sounds. “I won’t let you, Commander.”

Her face is stoic, so opposite of when she was young and her cartoonish expressions had been able to get even General Windu to crack a smile every now and again. He can hardly read her like this, and it makes him nervous. “Nobody _lets_ me do anything, Captain.”

He places his hands on his hips to keep them from clenching. _Breathe_ , he commands his traitorous old body, _and think_.

“I was assigned to have your back,” he grits out, switching tactics, “and I haven’t abandoned that duty, even if I’m no longer a soldier. Take me with you. We know his strengths and weaknesses better than anyone. Between us and Jarrus, we might have a shot.” He’s running through scenarios in his mind full speed, and it’s like preparing for Dooku all over again. If he can ignore the man he’s facing.

It takes him a bit of time to notice that she’s gotten up and is now in front of him. She leans in and folds him into a hug. “Old sins cast long shadows,” she whispers in his ear. “I’ve got to do this on my own, Rex.”

“See?” he whispers back, and deflates in her arms. He can feel his eyes watering, because this is it, and it’s come too damn soon. “Knew you were still a Jedi.”

He can feel her shake against him in laughter, even if no sound comes out. He knows he’s gripping her too tightly, but he can’t make himself stop. She’s holding him pretty tightly herself.

“If I don’t come back,” she whispers, and he lets out an ugly, choked sound. “If I don’t come back, promise me something, will you?”

“Anything,” he says.

“Keep up with Ezra. I’ve heard you’re pretty good with raising padawans, and rumor has it that you might have even enjoyed it a time or two.”

He flexes his fingers against her back and closes his eyes. He can see both of them in his mind, impossibly young. And they’re happy, for whatever happiness had been worth in their lives. He sees them playing sabacc on the bridge, and leaning together to stay upright during night watch, and giving each other glances around the general as he details their latest questionable mission. He’ll have that forever, even if he’s the only one left to remember.

“Be smart, Ahsoka,” he says, “and he’ll get to hear those stories himself.”

Gradually and too soon, he relaxes his grip and peels away. She’s taller than him now, so he has to look up at her to see her face. He can tell by her eyes that she’s prepared for the journey ahead, and if he could at least do that for her, it’s enough.

“Looks like I need a new cup of caff,” she says, with a glance at the table. “Care to join me? I’d like to review a few of the finer details of those stories before I go. I don’t think I trust your memory, old man.”

“I should have known you’d go there. Let’s start with Christophsis, shall we?”

“You mean the time I made you laugh so hard you had to cover your mouth so you wouldn’t embarrass yourself in front of Skyguy? Yeah, let’s start there.”

By the time dawn rolls around, they’re as content as they’re going to get. He only realizes once she’s gone that she’d indulged in his own pre-battle ritual. The sharing of stories, important to the millions of brothers lost to a meaningless war, and they had shared in it, one last time.

_Ni partayli, gar darauum, Ahsoka_. He won’t say the rest unless he has to.

**Author's Note:**

> The last little line here in Mandalorian is the second half of the full phrase (Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum), a phrase of remembrance for the dead, which means, “I’m still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.” 
> 
> The title is taken from “The Farewell,” in The Prophet (1923) by Khalil Gibran, and I had this excerpt in mind when I wrote this:
> 
> “Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.  
> It was but yesterday we met in a dream.  
> You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.  
> But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.  
> The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.  
> If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.  
> And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.”
> 
> This is my first attempt at Star Wars fanfic; I fell in love with it fairly recently with TFA, although clones and Ahsoka stole my heart. I spent the last month rapidly consuming The Clone Wars and Rebels just in time to watch "Twilight of the Apprentice" and cry a lot, and this is my first finished result. Hopefully I did it justice!


End file.
